Oregon remains secretive about child abuse cases: Gov. Ted Kulongoski four years ago ordered more accountability in investigation of child abuse but it hasn't happened
BRENT WALTH and MICHELLE COLE
The Oregonian Staff
SALEM -- Just before Christmas 2006, an 18-month-old Douglas County boy named Cameron was beaten so badly that he needed surgery to repair a torn liver and relieve pressure on his brain.
The boy survived, and his mother's boyfriend, Jeremy Lee Wease, was convicted in October of attempted assault.
A state review found child welfare workers had failed to take into account the family's history of abuse and neglect, and they didn't dig deeply enough to find out whether the boy was safe.
But the state's investigation wasn't made public for more than a year after the boy's abuse -- and four months after the criminal investigation was closed.
Secrecy and delay are a pattern in the state's investigations of its child welfare work. That's in spite of a promise Gov. Ted Kulongoski made nearly four years ago after several tragic child abuse cases. The
governor ordered the Department of Human Services to investigate when a child known to state welfare workers is grievously injured or killed.
At the time, Kulongoski said he wanted the public to know within 60 days what mistakes might have been made and how the state would prevent them from happening again.
"The goal is to make the system more accountable, both to the people of Oregon and, most importantly, to the children the system is charged to protect," Kulongoski said in October 2004.
Reports withheld
That isn't happening. Instead, officials have withheld reports from the public for months. And they say there is no way to confirm whether child welfare workers have changed the way they do things as a result of their findings.
Since 2004, the Department of Human Services has investigated 14 cases in which children known to the state child welfare system were killed or severely injured. The review teams typically include child welfare caseworkers, supervisors and representatives from the Department of Justice and the local district attorney's office.
Bryan Johnston, acting child welfare director, said the state reviews aren't serving the agency very well. Given that the reports have often come at the cost of a child's life, Johnston said, "We have paid a lot for the lessons."
Dr. Bruce Goldberg, director of the Department of Human Services, said he approved keeping some reports confidential out of deference to district attorneys who feared release of the reports could hurt the state's prosecutions.
"We've tried to balance the issues of law enforcement being able to prosecute and do their work, versus the agency being transparent and accountable," Goldberg said.
But the agency has been in no hurry to release the reports even when the criminal cases have closed.
In December, Christa Dolan pleaded no contest to mistreatment and assault charges after she jammed a disposable washcloth down the throat of her 18-month-old daughter, Destiny, in early 2007. In February, a Marion County judge sentenced her to more than nine years in prison.
Repeated requests
The state released the report of that investigation just 10 days ago, nearly a year after the report was finished and only after repeated requests from The Oregonian. The investigation found that child welfare workers had failed to ask a court to remove the girl from Dolan's care even though she and a sister were under state supervision.
Kulongoski, a former Oregon attorney general, told the newspaper that he understands the concerns of law enforcement, but he thinks the agency can still find a way to acknowledge its failures.
"What I want to make sure of more than anything is that this process isn't being used to basically hide what should be public and what we should be doing to prevent this from occurring again," Kulongoski said.
Last fall, Kulongoski and Goldberg asked for ideas to make the reviews work better. Two weeks ago, a group of law enforcement and child welfare experts said the investigations need to focus more on how child welfare workers can be more effective. They also said that audits should be used to increase accountability, and that officials should commit to making the reports public as soon as possible.
To identify problems
"We've talked about the value of making (the reports) really work as not some abstract public relations function but as a mechanism that can quickly identify institutional problems and respond to them," said Deputy Attorney General Peter Shepherd, who has led the review.
The reviews aren't just at the governor's direction. A law passed by the 2007 Legislature requires a state review of every case involving a child who dies while in state foster care or who has been the subject of an abuse report within the last year.
Rep. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, fought to put the requirement into law after 3-year-old Karly Sheehan was killed by her mother's boyfriend in 2005. State officials had received at least two suspected abuse reports involving the toddler, but they'd been ruled "unfounded," meaning there was no reasonable cause for authorities to believe that abuse or neglect had occurred.
Karly's Law requires Human Services to investigate its handling of a case after a child dies. It also modifies procedures in child abuse investigations to include a prompt medical assessment of a child with suspicious injuries.
"When we have a terrible outcome like the death of a child," Gelser said, "the very least we can do is take what we learned through that experience and apply it to the kids who are going to come through the system in the future."
Story posted April 7, 2008